How to use sweepstakes to get signups and grow your list fast

These competitions are a cost-effective way to get email subscribers, easy to run with tools you already use, and an effective way to fill up your list with targeted people you can turn into new customers. 

Read on to learn more about using giveaways for email list growth. We’ll go through the exact steps required to run a campaign and highlight 9 examples of successful sweepstakes from a variety of industries that you can learn from. Let’s go!

In marketing, sweepstakes and giveaways are competitions where people who take a particular action are entered into a draw to win a prize. 

The action can be liking or commenting on a post, following a social account, or in the case of email marketing, signing up for an email list. The key is that there is no entry fee or requirement for someone to purchase a product to enter.

Anyone can join a sweepstakes or giveaway and the winner is chosen randomly. This contrasts with a contest, where the winner is chosen based on predetermined criteria that require skill or effort. For example, a photo contest in which judges choose the best entrant.

Here’s the good news: Sweepstakes aren’t rocket science. People join your email list for the chance of winning a prize, and you choose a random winner from all the submissions and deliver the prize. 

Here are some of the main factors you need to consider.

• The giveaway prize

• The start and end date

• The entry requirement, e.g. joining the email list

• How you’ll promote the giveaway

• How you’ll track entrants

• How you’ll choose a winner (or winners) from all the people who entered

• How you’ll alert the winner 

• Who the giveaway is open to

It may seem like a lot to think about, but the tips in this article will help ensure everything runs smoothly. 

Sweepstakes make the most sense for online sellers since these businesses can give away their products as prizes. Using your product as a prize ensures that anyone who signs up is interested in what you sell.

This can include all kinds of brands, such as e-commerce stores, authors, communities, consultants, creators, event operators, and tourism businesses. 

We’ve broken the process of creating a successful sweepstakes down into 10 simple steps. Follow along to get started. 

Step 1: Define your target audience

Decide who you want to join your sweepstakes before doing anything else. Your ideal entrant will typically be the target audience of your business or a particular segment of your audience. Being precise about who you want to reach makes it easy to choose a prize that will appeal. 

Step 2: Choose a desirable, targeted prize

Try to be extra specific when choosing a prize, unless you are intentionally targeting a very broad audience. 

Your audience might desire a MacBook, but so does the audience of every business. Offering a MacBook as a prize will result in many entrants, but unless you’re Tim Cook (Hi 👋), many of these people will be uninterested in your brand. 

A better option is to choose a prize that only your audience values. 

For example: 

• An e-commerce store could offer one of its products

• An online course provider could offer free courses 

• An artist could offer free prints

• A publisher could offer books

• A service provider could offer a consultation

• A creator could offer digital download access 

• A community could give away a free membership

• A podcaster could offer event tickets

You’ll get fewer entrants when you choose a specific prize. But the people who sign up are sure to be interested in your business. 

Step 3: Choose when the competition will run

Choose a start and end date for your sweepstakes. A longer runtime gives people more opportunities to enter, a shorter one increases urgency and encourages people to sign up right away. 

Consider factors related to your business when deciding when to start. If you’re planning a new product release or a big sale, running the sweepstakes just before launch ensures you’ll have plenty of new signups to promote your offer to. 

Step 4: Set up official rules and terms

Clarify your sweepstakes rules so people know exactly what they are signing up for. 

You can mention:

• The dates and times (including timezone) the sweepstakes will open and close

• The steps people must take to enter

• How you’ll choose the winner

• The prizes on offer

• When the winner will be notified

• How the winner will be notified

• How long they have to respond and what happens if they don’t

• How the prize will be fulfilled

Add this information to your promotional material, such as your social media posts or landing page. 

Step 5: Create an email sign-up page

Create an email sign-up landing page people can use to enter the competition. Keep the content clear by focusing the page on the offer. Include essential information, benefits for joining, an email entry form, and what people can expect when they sign up. 

MailerLite customers can use our landing page generator to quickly whip up a professional design with their own brand styles. Use our landing page builder to customize this base by adding sections, changing the text and even generating AI content. 

When building the landing page, connect it to a subscriber group for sweepstakes entrants. Everyone who joins your list will be added to the group, making choosing a winner a breeze.

Step 6: Create an automated welcome email

Create an automated email that goes out to anyone who enters the sweepstakes. Say thanks for entering, explain what happens next, and mention extra steps people should take to complete their entry, such as liking a post on social media. 

In MailerLite, start the automation when a subscriber joins the group connected to your landing page. People who subscribe will trigger the welcome email the moment they enter their address. 

You could also create follow-up emails for the days after someone enters your sweepstakes. Or, if you already have a welcome sequence, add a step to the sweepstakes automation that moves them to the group that triggers your welcome automation.

Step 7: Promote the giveaway on your social channels

Most brands promote their sweepstakes on their social media channels. If you have multiple profiles, promote it on each one! This will help turn social followers into email list subscribers.

Consider mentioning your giveaway several times. You could create a main post on Instagram and then refer to it in your stories every day.

Step 8: Encourage participants to tag friends and share

Increase the visibility of your offer by adding a social engagement requirement to your sweepstakes entrance. For example, ask people to join your email list and like or comment on your post. 

You could even offer additional entries if people complete multiple steps. This way you’ll get a boost in email signups and social media platform visibility.

Step 9: Choose a winner

Once your sweepstakes closes, it’s time to choose a winner. Use the method outlined in your rules to decide the lucky person or people. 

An easy way to choose a winner is to download the group containing giveaway entrants as a CSV file. 

Look at the file to see how many rows you have and then use a random number generator to choose one of the rows. The corresponding subscriber is the winner.  

Message the lucky subscriber via the channels outlined in your rules. Be sure to follow the steps you created so people know what to look for. 

Once you’ve contacted the winners, you must fulfill their prizes. How you do this will depend on the prize you choose. 

Step 10: Follow up with participants

Not everyone can win a prize. But you should still send an email to everyone who entered thanking them for taking part and highlighting the outcome of the event. 

At this point, sweeten the disappointment by offering a discount on the product that participants entered the sweepstakes to win. 

Since they joined up specifically to win the prize, you know they are interested in the product. A discount could be all they need to buy. 

When run correctly, sweepstakes can have major brand benefits. Here are 6 of the biggest.

1. Grow your list 

Sweepstakes work because the chance to win a prize can be a big incentive to get people to take action with your brand. Making joining your email list the required action will boost your subscriber count. 

2. More audience control 

Turning social media followers into email subscribers gives you way more control over your audience. You can contact them directly and you aren’t at risk of algorithm changes or penalties reducing your reach.

3. Attract the right people

The right prize not only generates high engagement but specifically incentivizes engagement among people interested in your product. 

The key is to choose a product that will attract the people you want while not being particularly interesting to people outside your target market.

4. Make future sales

The upshot of having a larger audience of people interested in your business is that you’ll make more sales when you promote products via your email newsletter. 

5. Cost-effective subscriber growth

Sweepstakes can be exceptionally cost-effective. Just choose a prize that suits your budget while also appealing to your audience. 

6. Increased visibility

Sweepstakes posted on social media can also result in increased brand visibility. The key is to make interacting with your post part of the requirement to enter the sweepstake. 

Here are 9 examples of brands using sweepstakes to grow their email list. We’ve chosen a variety of business types and highlighted why each one works.

Reser’s: Use for products with high repeat purchase potential

Reser’s prize of a year’s worth of products will appeal to fans. The product’s general appeal combined with high repeat purchase potential means building its email list is likely to result in tons of sales.

Berkeley Books: Team up with other accounts

Publisher Berkley Books offers a prize of free books from 6 of its authors. Some of these authors shared the post on their social accounts, boosting the giveaway’s visibility.

Leona.co: Make newsletter referrals an entry requirement

Leona.co requires signups to refer others to its newsletter for a chance to win. By encouraging customer newsletter referrals, the company will grow its list among people who are similar to its existing customer base. What’s more, some people may join the list just to make the referral and win a prize. 

Saks Fifth Avenue: Combine a prize with a discount coupon

Saks Fifth Avenue has a sweepstakes with a $1,500 gift card prize. It’s a big prize that is sure to attract a lot of signups. What’s more, the brand combines the sweepstake offer with a 10% discount, ensuring that everyone who joins gets a reward. 

Saranoni Blankets: Use multiple steps for entry

Saranoni Blankets covers all growth opportunities by requiring people to take multiple steps to enter the sweepstakes. This will maximize both visibility on social media and email list growth. 

Fabric: Run the same giveaway every week

Fabric gives 5 people who join its email list access to its community every week. This costs the brand nothing and has the added benefit of helping to grow the community while keeping it exclusive. Plus, the ongoing giveaway means there are plenty of chances for people to join. 

Silverwood Theme Park: Zero in on your target audience

Silverwood Theme Park gave away 5 free tickets in its sweepstakes. Multiple prizes give people a higher chance of winning, which could increase entrants. Plusm the prize is only appealing to people who can actually visit the park, meaning the list will be filled with potential customers.

Napoleon Grills: Use multiple prize levels

Napoleon Grills uses multiple prize levels to increase the number of people who can win a prize without the cost of the giveaway being too high. The company is also clear about who can enter, so people from countries they don’t ship to aren’t disappointed.

Oatly Cannondale: Grow multiple accounts simultaneously

By partnering with multiple brands, Oatly Cannondale can grow several social media accounts with a single giveaway. This giveaway was only open for a few days, ensuring people who wanted to enter took action immediately.

By now, you should have a clear idea of what makes a good giveaway and how to run one that effectively grows your email list. Follow the steps in the article to get started and use the examples as inspirations for your campaign. 

But don’t stop at growing your list with a sweepstakes. For more tips and strategies you can use to boost subscriber count, check out our ultimate guide to growing an email list.